A tantalising suggestion that the FIRA European Sevens Championship could be taking place in England this season - the first time any FIRA tournament will have been played anywhere in the UK or Ireland.
Nothing is confirmed yet, but I have been given details of an (unpublished) letter from FIRA to all unions about the 2011 European Sevens tournaments. There are so many nations who play international sevens in Europe - nearly half of all the active rugby nations in the world - that the continent's regional association has to divide the teams into three divisions, which gets quite complicated. In addition the next Sevens World Cup is in 2013, which implies qualification tournaments in 2012, the seedings and organisation for which will be based on the 2011 results.
So, while the "A" and "B" championships (that is the second and third division) will go on more or less as they do normally, the "Top Ten" championship for the, well, top 10 nations is going to be beefed up a bit. In 2009 none of Europe's representative made even the semi-finals, so the aim must be to try to get continent's leading teams as well prepared as possible in 2013.
With this in mind, instead of a single "Top Ten" tournament this spring, there will be two with the championship being awarded to the best nation across both events, using the same points system as the men's sevens circuit. The first tournament will be in Sweden, but the second will "take place during the last round of the [men's sevens] Grand Prix Series". That last round takes place over two weekends in London and Edinburgh at the end of May - so this could just mean that the top ten European sevens teams will be playing in England for the first time.
Who will they be? At the moment its impossible to say as it depends of how many of the Six Nations enter. Ireland and Scotland women have never been particularly interested in Sevens - neither entered the 2009 World Cup (well, Scotland did but then pulled out). England will definitely take part, as will France and Italy and Wales will probably take part.
However, do not take it for granted that the winners will be a Six Nations team - Sevens is a different world. Spain are an awesome sevens formation - European champions last season - while Netherlands, Russia and sevens specialists Portugal cannot be underestimated. In addition - assuming Scotland and Ireland are absent - Germany and Sweden will be pretty competitive.
No guarantees yet, but if it does take place in England it should be a great weekend.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
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